


Stuck Point

by abbylee622



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Goes to Therapy, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky deals with his shit, Bucky has a major potty-mouth, Light Angst, Like canon-compliant if the movies after ca:tws weren't garbage, M/M, More just like wanting to hug Bucky and wanting him to be okay, NOT endgame compliant, POV Bucky Barnes, Sort of canon-compliant?, Steve isn't technically in this but like he is talked about so hence the tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 12:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19376917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbylee622/pseuds/abbylee622
Summary: “How can people just sit around all the time go about their daily lives and just pretend that everything is normal!” Bucky promptly stops pacing around the room to sit down and look at Dr. Nolan.“Is that what you think everyone is doing?” She pauses and fixes him with one of her classic ‘I’m an all-powerful therapist and I feel like you are talking about yourself even though you haven’t said that’ looks. “Pretending everything is normal?”Bucky chokes back a groan. He really likes Dr. Nolan but sometimes he just wishes she would come right out and say what she is thinking instead of asking him these ‘open-ended questions’ or whatever to try and ‘prompt him to gain insight.’ Then again, she probably wishes he would come right out and say what he is thinking too. Huh....Also known as, a one-shot of Bucky's therapy session as he tries to work through some of the shit keeping him from recovery.





	Stuck Point

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So this is the first fic I've ever written let alone published...pretty much I've been feeling very sad about Bucky's characterization (or lack thereof?) post-Endgame. So this fic was born as a way for me to project some of my own life onto Bucky (gotta love doing that) while also giving him a chance to heal. Because really, hasn't the poor guy been through enough? 
> 
> So while I did tag this as a Stucky fic, it really is just Bucky's therapy session with him just talking about his relationship with Steve for part of it. Hope you like it!

“How can people just sit around all the time go about their daily lives and just pretend that everything is normal!” Bucky promptly stops pacing around the room to sit down and look at Dr. Nolan.

“Is that what you think everyone is doing?” She pauses and fixes him with one of her classic ‘I’m an all-powerful therapist and I feel like you are talking about yourself even though you haven’t said that’ looks. “Pretending everything is normal?”

Bucky chokes back a groan. He really likes Dr. Nolan but sometimes he just wishes she would come right out and say what she is thinking instead of asking him these ‘open-ended questions’ or whatever to try and ‘prompt him to gain insight.’ Then again, she probably wishes he would come right out and say what he is thinking too. Huh.

“I walk down the street and see all these people just walking around, living their lives. They don’t seem to be aware of anything that is happening around them. They don’t seem to care. There are countries where people are _starving_ to death. Countries where people’s _own governments_ are killing them, right out in the freaking open! And even here, there is death and destruction and war and poverty and so many horrible things happening all of the time. And yet it seems like everyone is perfectly content to go about their daily lives pretending like everything is fine when _it’s not fucking fine_! Nothing is fine!” His voice has gone up a few octaves by the end of his rant and he knows he is shouting. He closes his eyes to avoid seeing whatever face Dr. Nolan is going to be making at him. It’ll probably be one of the ones where she tilts her head a little to the side and looks at him like she understands what he is saying but also sees right into his soul. Fucking therapists.

He finally opens his eyes and turns to look at Dr. Nolan. She’s looking at him, but it isn’t a look he’s familiar with.

“You have seen more of the death and destruction and horrible things happening in this world than most people.” She says it as a statement, not a question. Bucky feels a shiver run through his back. He waits for Dr. Nolan to continue or say something more, but she doesn’t. She just looks at him, as if scanning his reaction to her statement.

“Yes…” Bucky still doesn’t know where she is going with this. What’s the end goal here Doc. Trying to get me to cry again? Good luck with that. Before he can continue his internal discussion, Dr. Nolan speaks.

“How do you view yourself in reference to all this death and destruction?”

Bucky feels a low heat begin to build in his spine. The kind of heat he associates with having his brain scrambled and fried. For some reason, whenever he actually lets himself think about these things, he starts to get all these random sensations in his body. The feeling of stiff leather straps holding down his wrists. The smell of the cryo chamber just before the cold hits him. The heat in his spine that would come after.

Dr. Nolan is still watching him, waiting for him to answer. How do I view myself in reference to all of this death and destruction? Bucky almost feels like laughing. But he knows the laugh would be harsh and manic, and probably turn into tears or screaming within a few breaths.

“I’m a villain.” Bucky feels like his spine is on fire as he finally answers her.

“Tell me what you mean by that.” Ah yes, another classic Dr. Nolan line. What do you mean by that Bucky? Why won’t you just come out and talk about your trauma? The reason you are here. The reason you barely sleep at night. The reason you can barely leave your room for fear of actually having to interact with other people.

Dr. Nolan must be able to hear his thoughts, because she looks him over once then says, “I know this is hard Bucky. It is hard and tiring and yet you are here doing it. I’m not going to make you talk about anything you don’t want to. That being said, I want you to be able to talk about these things because I want you to be able to live your life and right now, I feel like your thoughts and feelings about _yourself_ are stopping you from doing that.”

Incredible observation Dr. Nolan. Incredible. So astute. The great doctor has given her wisdom and now I am healed. Bucky lets out a bark of a laugh and shakes his head as if trying to clear out all of the bad thoughts. On some level, he knows Dr. Nolan is right. He needs to talk about the thoughts that lurk in the dark corners of his mind. He needs to talk about them even if it hurts and even if it makes her hate him or hell, even if it makes her realize how much he hates himself.

Bucky really doesn’t want to spend the rest of his freakishly long super-solider life at constant war with his own mind. Occasional war, sure. Everyone who’s had anything happen in their life has that. That’s tiring, but allowable. Bucky just doesn’t want to be afraid of himself anymore. Afraid of who he knows he is, was, has maybe always been.

“I’m a villain.” He pauses for a minute as he takes in the acidic taste those words left on his tongue. He almost feels like he is back there. In the fight. Any of the fights. Strapped to that chair waiting for his orders. Like his body is no longer his and is again just a weapon. “I’ve done horrible things. Unspeakable things. I was the asset. I was the _goddamn winter fucking soldier_! I _am_ death and destruction.” When he becomes aware of his body again, he realizes he is clenching the armrest with his metal hand so hard that he might leave indents. His face is screwed up, fighting back the tears that he had told himself he wasn’t going to let spill again today. Oh great, now I’m going to cry again too. Fucking therapy.

“I’ve hurt and killed and destroyed lives. So many lives. People walk around like everything is fine but I can’t do that. I can’t forget everything that I’ve done. I remember them all. Every fucking person I hurt. Every person I killed. Everything they made me do. I. Remember. It. All.”

Bucky feels himself begin to cry, but he can’t stop it. Doesn’t want to stop it. On some level, letting himself cry feels good. It makes him feel like the heat is draining from his spine. Like if he was able to cry for long enough, all the sadness inside of him might be able to find its way out.

Dr. Nolan sits with him in silence for what feels like an eternity, letting him cry and snot all over himself. She hands him the tissue box when he reaches for it and rubs his arm in a comforting way, but other than that she just lets him have his moment. When she finally speaks, it feels like she has taken what was inside Bucky’s head and stripped him bare.

“You were, are, the winter solider. That will always be a part of you. Trauma is not something that ever really goes away, but that does not mean it has to be a part of your identity. These parts of you will always be there but they are not all you are. You are Bucky Barnes. You get to choose how your story goes from now on. Hydra no longer has your mind. You can’t change what you did or what happened to you, but you do get to choose who you are now.”

“I remember them all.” Bucky feels the tears dripping down his neck. “I don’t know how to be happy because I don’t know how to stop paying attention to the world around me. I can’t be around my friends because I don’t want to infect them. I don’t want them to start to see the world the way I do. I don’t want them to see _me_ the way I do.”

“Do you think that your friends view you as a villain?”

Bucky feels his face twist into a grimace. “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like they do, at least some of them. And I know logically that some of them don’t, even if they really should.” When he says this, he rolls his eyes a tiny bit, which Dr. Nolan catches.

“When you say that, are you talking about Steve?”

Sometimes he forgets just how perceptive this woman is. And how much he’s told her. _God damn fucking therapy_.

“Yes…I was talking about Steve.” Bucky really doesn’t want to have this conversation right now. He’s already feeling very raw and vulnerable and talking about Steve never fails to make him feel 20 times _more_ vulnerable.

“Why do you say that Steve really should view you as a villain?”

“I don’t know...” Bucky scrubs a hand down over his face, which in reality ends up being super gross since he still has snot leaking everywhere. “I almost killed him. I tried to kill him. He was my mission. I shot him and literally beat him half to death, enough that he went fully unconscious. You know how hard you have to beat a super solider to make them go fully unconscious? So _yeah_ , I feel like he should really view me as a villain.”

“So you think that your past actions, specifically you trying to kill Steve, should make him view you differently than he does.”

“I mean yeah. He should hate me. Or at least be wary around me, I guess? I don’t want him to be scared of me, but he should be. That’s what a _logical_ person would do. Be at least a little bit fucking cautious around the guy who was actively trying to murder them. But _nooo_ , not Steve. He has no problem trying to snuggle up next to me when we’re watching a movie or asking me to cut him some more pineapple or literally _handing me his gun_ because he has too many things in his hands. Like, what a fucking moron. He has absolutely no fucking regard for his own safety.” Bucky scowls just thinking about all the dumbass things Steve does on a regular basis.

Dr. Nolan shifts in her seat and does her little ‘head tilted to the side’ look. “You think that he should be more cautious around you? Not trust you around weapons?”

“Yes, exactly!”

“I noticed that while your second and third examples of Steve not being cautious involved weapons, your first was the fact that he tries to snuggle up next to you while watching a movie.” Shit. Fucking shit. Why is she so _goddamn_ perceptive and why does she hear the things Bucky says that he doesn’t mean to actually say. At least not out loud in the presence of a human who has no problem calling him on his bullshit.

“Uhhh…”

“Tell me about why you classify that as something unsafe.”

“I mean…I could hurt him. Like I said, I’ve literally tried to kill Steve on multiple occasions. He shouldn’t want to be so close to someone like that.”

“You’ve told me in the past that Steve has always been one of the people who thought you were more than just a weapon. That you were someone worth saving.” _How_ does she remember everything he’s ever told her. Like what the actual fuck. Maybe she’s some sort of super human too. Maybe that’s the secret of therapy, that all therapists are just fucking super human freaks who remember everything you ever say and like to repeat it back to you to try and make you _cry_ and deal with all your _feelings_.

“I mean…yeah. That was kind of his whole rant when he brought me back to the Avengers tower and they were deciding if it was okay for me to stay or not.”

“Bucky, I’d like to make an assumption about what we might actually be talking about here. If I’m wrong, please tell me.” Oh god, what is she about to say. “Is it the physical intimacy with Steve that actually has you uncomfortable? Because of how that physical intimacy also relates to emotional intimacy?”

Bucky and Dr. Nolan stare at each other for a few seconds. She doesn’t seem to have any real expression on her face besides that ‘I am here to listen, please spill your secrets’ look she often gives him when he’s being particularly vulnerable with her. Bucky knows he’s making a face like a child about to have a temper tantrum. He doesn’t really know why. Well, that’s a lie. He’s making it because he doesn’t want to talk about this and he’s feeling particularly cranky with Dr. Nolan for saying those things out loud.

“Why would I have a problem with that with Steve?” Bucky draws his mouth into a hard line and tries to look less like a grumpy child.

“As you’ve said, you feel you are a villain. You think Steve should view you in this way, but he doesn’t. Is it possible that you worry about being open with Steve because you might slip up, and tell him some of the thoughts in your head? The way you feel about yourself. The way he should feel about you. And you’re worried that if you tell him these things, then they might start to change the way he views you. He might start to see you the way you see yourself.”

Bucky just gapes at Dr. Nolan. His thoughts are moving a mile a minute and he knows he’s making a sound like a fish floundering on land. Dr. Nolan obviously knows she hit the nail right on the head, she’s just leaning back in her chair waiting for him to respond. Waiting for him to respond to everything she just said, as if she hadn’t just taken his inner-most thoughts and laid them all out in the open.

“I…fuck. I don’t know.” Bucky takes a deep breath and avoids making any eye contact with Dr. Nolan. “Yes. Okay, _yes_. I don’t want Steve to know what goes on in my brain. I don’t want him to know how _fucked up_ I really am. I don’t want him to know it because if he does then maybe he won’t want to snuggle with me on the couch or be around me at all. Which I also know is fucking stupid of me because I can’t even deal with him doing any of that now. Because when he does it all I can think of is the fact that I don’t deserve him. I don’t deserve his love and if he really knew me, the me I am now, he wouldn’t love me anymore. So I don’t want to open up to him because I want him to be close to me, but I can’t let him be close to me because it makes me want to open up to him. I just can’t fucking do anything. I’m caught between all these thoughts and all these fears and it feels like my brain is just exploding sometimes. It feels like I’m screaming but nothing actually comes out. Steve asks me what’s wrong and all I can do is grunt at him and close myself in my room. I can’t talk to him and all I want is to talk to him.”

Bucky feels water dripping onto his neck and realizes he must’ve started crying again. Wow, three times in one session. Dr. Nolan is really on a roll today.

“It sounds like you’ve put yourself in a real catch 22 situation. You want Steve to be close with you. When he is close with you, it makes you want to open up to him. You want to open up and talk to him about how you’re feeling, but you don’t want him to change how he feels about you.”

Bucky reaches for another tissue but realizes the box he is holding is already empty. Probably from all the crying and snotting he’s been doing in the last hour. Dr. Nolan grabs a new box from the table behind her, almost like she knew he might need it today. Fucking therapists.

Dr. Nolan leans back in her chair after handing him the tissues and just observes him for a minute. “Bucky, do you remember when we talked about stuck points?”

“Uhh yeah. Those are those thoughts I have that like, keep me from getting better right?”

“Exactly. When you were talking just now, it sounded to me like one of your stuck points is that Steve will not love you if you open up to him. Would you say that is correct?” Bucky nods his head in Dr. Nolan’s direction while staring down into the pile of tissues on his lap.

“I want you to tell me the evidence for your stuck point, and the evidence against it. Can you do that?”

“Yeah…yeah I think I can do that.” Bucky sighs and shifts so he’s actually sitting up on the Doc’s couch, instead of slumping down into it. “Uhh so evidence for my stuck point…that’s like the evidence that says I’m correct, right? That Steve won’t love me if I open up to him?” Dr. Nolan nods her head. “I mean I don’t know if there is any evidence for it. Outside of like my own feelings, which I know you’ve told me aren’t facts. I guess the only evidence I have is that I’ve never told Steve these kinds of things before, so I don’t really know how he will react.”

“In response to that and when thinking of evidence _against_ your stuck point, how has Steve responded in the past when you’ve told him difficult things?”

“I mean he’s Steve, so he always is trying to make sure I’m okay. Even when I told him I had enlisted in the war, he was happy for me simply because he thought I was happy about it.”

“So, in the past, Steve has handled difficult news from you well.”

“Yeah I guess so.” Bucky can feel what she’s doing. Bringing logic into the conversation. Which is super fucking annoying. It’s probably necessary, since he knows he gets trapped in his own head and doesn’t think about things from any other angles, but still super fucking annoying.

“In what way is this stuck point based on just one piece of the story?” When Dr. Nolan says this, Bucky is immediately bombarded with the memory of Steve lying under him, beaten to a bloody pulp, saying ‘I’m with you till the end of the line.’ Steve was willing to let Bucky kill him. He was willing to go against his friends, his country, for Bucky. Bucky clenches and unclenches his fists, while Dr. Nolan regards him curiously. She always seems to know what he’s thinking so he’s sure she is just waiting for him to speak up. Waiting for him to expose another piece of himself to her in the name of ‘recovery’ or whatever.

After a few more moments of silence, Bucky finally speaks up. “I know it isn’t the whole story. I think there’s some part of me that knows that Steve will still love me. I mean the man was willing to literally die for me. _His lack of a fucking survival instinct_.” Bucky mutters that last part under his breath before continuing. “I know that I’m looking at this in an irrational way. I know that talking to Steve about all this would probably be helpful. But there’s just this loud voice in my brain that screams _what if_. What if it does end up being too much for Steve. What if it makes him question if he made the right choice. What if I talk to him about it and need to keep talking to him about it? What if he expects me to get better quicker than I am and gets sick of hearing me talk about how fucking messed up I am? I want to be open with him. I want to be the one who snuggles up to him on the couch on movie night and I want to be able to actually interact with his friends and I want him to know me. All of me. Even the parts that I don’t like. But I’m fucking scared of that. I’m scared of it all being too much. For him _and_ for me.”

“Opening up to the people we love can be extremely difficult. And that doesn’t even account for the depth of your trauma and the obstacles you have faced. But I heard you say multiple times that you want to be able to do it. You want to open up to Steve. And that right there is a huge first step.”

“I just don’t want to get stuck on that. Just wanting it and never being able to actually do it.” Bucky says this in an almost whisper. He knows Dr. Nolan really is on his side and that she doesn’t judge him no matter what he says or does, but he still feels like he is letting her down by admitting his worries out loud.

“So how can you keep yourself from getting stuck. What is an action you can take over the next week to get yourself closer to being able to open up to Steve?”

“I don’t know…I guess I could try to let myself actually sit with Steve? …Well that maybe could be a lot. Or maybe I could try to actually talk to him about little things? Like when we’re making breakfast I could actually try to make small talk with him instead of just like grunting or giving one word answers in response to his fucking endless chatter about the weather and sports and how bananas are different now.” God it’s so annoying when he does that. So fucking annoying and cute. God dammit Steve.

“Bucky I think that is an absolutely wonderful idea.” Dr. Nolan is practically beaming at him. Bucky feels… pleased? Wow has it really come to this. Is he really _this_ fucking happy because his therapist is proud of him for something he hasn’t even _done_ yet? This is what happens when your therapist is one of the most important relationships in your life. God fucking dammit.

Dr. Nolan glances at her watch before speaking again, so Bucky knows what’s she’s about to say. Time for the check in before pushing him back out into the real world.

“Before we go any farther today, I do need to tell you that we are out of time. Before I let you go, I just want to check in for a minute. How has today been for you?”

Bucky releases a tired laugh. “I mean…today kinda sucked? Okay no that’s not the right word to use…today was just a lot. Like it was good, I guess.” Bucky rubs his hand down his face. “I feel like we covered a lot today and I got a lot out, but I also kinda feel like I just ran a marathon and need to go into hibernation for the next week. And then it’ll be time for our next session. Oh joy.” Bucky gives Dr. Nolan a grimace of a smile with that last statement.

Dr. Nolan chuckles. “I can understand why you would feel that way, you put in a lot of work today. Talking about these difficult things takes a whole lot of energy. If you’re able to, take the rest of the day to just let yourself recharge a little bit. And I’ll see you next week, same time, same day.”

“See ya next week Doc.” As Bucky walks out of her office, he realizes that he does feel different. Besides being completely fucking exhausted, he feels…lighter? I guess that can happen when you unload a whole mountain of tears and snot in a session. Something that almost sounds like a giggle comes out of his mouth. God, is therapy making me more of a crazy person?

The real world will catch back up to him soon, but in the meantime, Bucky enjoys the feeling of not being totally at war with his mind. He walks down the street slowly, taking the time to notice how white the clouds look against the blue sky. The last hour had been the absolute worst, but it also had left him with the start of a plan for what he wanted to change in his life. He was ready to go home and try to talk to Steve about bananas and maybe even let him snuggle for a few minutes. So maybe Dr. Nolan knew what she was doing after all, who would have guessed it. _Fucking therapists_.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at dumbledores-a-bitch.tumblr.com !!! 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated :)


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